South Texans Hope Presidential Hunts Mean Economic Gains : Bush Reports Bagging ‘Several’ Quail

President-elect George Bush on Wednesday sent cryptic word that he had bagged “several” quail in three days of hunting on the 10,000-acre Lazy F Ranch near here.

“They’ve had some success, but not as much as they’ve had in past years,” Bush spokesman Stephen Hart told reporters.

With that, the curtain came down on news of the vice president’s vacation. Just how many birds Bush shot--and whether he ate them, as planned--was not announced.

As he packed to return to Washington, Bush guarded his privacy and held tight to details of the time he spent dogging birds with friends, including James A. Baker III, his choice for secretary of state.

If Bush’s trip was disarmingly quiet, it also illustrated the quicksilver changes accompanying his transition to the presidency.

Motorcade Draws Crowd

In the past, Bush has slipped into South Texas all but unnoticed for his annual hunting trip, but hundreds of people turned out Monday to cheer his motorcade. More of the same is expected today, when he is to leave for half a day of fishing in Alabama before returning to Washington tonight.

During the hunting trip, which Bush has taken annually for 25 years, the President-elect rose at dawn and hunted until noon on the Lazy F, up a winding road 15 miles east of here. After lunch, he napped, then ventured again into the wind-swept brush country each afternoon, aides said.

With him were his host, Houston-based businessman William Farish, his brother, Jonathan Bush, and Baker. Farish, who owns the ranch and manages Bush’s financial holdings in a blind trust, had entertained Bush at his Florida home immediately after the November election.

Barbara Bush stayed behind in Washington to pack for the move to Pennsylvania Avenue. That surprised no one here, where a hunting trip is considered the business of men.

Defends Hobby

Although the notion of the President-elect’s shooting game on vacation might have disturbed some, Bush, a member of the National Rifle Assn. and an avid fisherman--has defended his long-time hobby.

“These aren’t ‘animals,’ these are wild quail,” Bush said the other day, offering a distinction that was lost on some.

“You gotta eat,” he added. “Our forefathers ate by harvesting game. I don’t think I could shoot a deer. Quail--that’s something else again.”

“Almost all the men like to hunt,” Janice Porter of the Beeville Chamber of Commerce said. Her 10-year-old son has been hunting for nearly a third of his life, she said.

City Manager Jose Montez agreed. He said that “50% of the male population of the city hunts,” and added: “Women also hunt.”

The vice president is a familiar figure here in the southern part of Texas, his adopted home state.

All-Male Barbeque

In addition to his yearly visit to the Lazy F, a few years back Bush spoke at the Men’s Old-Fashioned Barbeque on a nearby ranch. About 1,000 politicians and civic leaders--all men, as the title suggests--get together each year for the event.

Although the visits of a vice president offer little in the way of economic benefit, Bush’s impending job change has residents of this down-at-the-heels region hoping his presence will spark some sort of resurgence.

Beeville, population 15,000, is 60 miles north of Corpus Christi. “From now on, nobody’s going to say ‘Where is that?’ ” Porter of the Chamber of Commerce said, voicing the optimism that persists in here in the midst of a severe slump.

Like the rest of Texas, Beeville and tiny Berclair, a town of fewer than 400 people adjacent to the Lazy F, have been ravaged, first by the plummeting fortunes of the oil industry and then by drought. As unemployment here rose to its present rate of 8.5%, the Beeville city fathers have tried to protect the local economy.

Town in a Slump

More than $450,000 was spent to spruce up the old downtown, and an economic development commission was founded. A bid for a job-generating state prison--an item usually low on any municipal wish list--will be forwarded to the capital, Austin, next spring. Still, downtown contains many vacant storefronts.

“We would just take anything,” said Porter.

Beeville residents have yet to figure out exactly how to take economic advantage of Bush’s visits. So far, the impact is limited to extra business at the motels and restaurants that serve the Bush entourage.

“We hope to capitalize on it,” said Montez, whose forebears settled here 290 years ago.

“It does help the economy short term, but, in the long run, whether G. E. is going to want to build a plant here . . . because George Bush hunts in Beeville . . . . I don’t think so.”

Bush has yet to set foot in Beeville proper on one of his trips. His usual routine takes him from Chase Field Naval Air Station around the city to the ranch.

But even that does not dent Beeville’s optimism.

“He’ll have four years to do it,” Montez said cheerfully.